We got some excellent guesses in our recent mystery object post, right up to and including the right answer. Jim, Michael D. Pinho, and Einstein all answered correctly that it is a handheld wire straightening tool.

Manufactured by Du-Bro, you can find these in fishing stores for straightening “wire leaders.” Wire leaders are short lengths of steel wire used at the end of a fishing line when fishing for big fish with sharp teeth that might otherwise bite through your line.

They’re also pretty handy around the shop.  We have two different sizes of these, for straightening different gauges of wire.

To use one, you place the wire that you wish to straighten in the center of the three hinged rods and clamp the rods together in your hand.  And then, with quite a bit of effort, you pull the wire straight through the center.  Doing so forces the wire to bend around the bumps on the rods, straightening out any kinks and twists with surprising effectiveness.

Here is an interesting thing that we picked up recently— and we realized that almost no one recognizes it.  We’ll give you a few hints, but can you figure out what it is, and what it is for?

The object consists of three solid metal rods with raised bands around them, hinged such that that they can smoothly move with respect to one another, and that each of the rods can be turned freely.

In fact, you can fold it all the way over onto itself.

And here is a size reference, it fits nicely in your palm.

So, what is it?  Please leave your educated guesses in the comments!

Update: Yes, it’s a wire straightening tool— read more about it here.

Our neighbor, Don Burns, is working on one of the biggest kits we’ve seen: an Easy Riser biplane hang glider. The first page of the plans is shown above.

Don let me take a few pictures of his work in progress— the wings are hanging above his well-equipped workbench.

The plans are filled with quirky reminders and tips, the occasional misspelling, and bits of humor.

Thanks for sharing your project, Don!

We’re not sure what it it is about Hanukkah that brings out the Star Trek fans, but they’re back. First, Joyce brings us an updated TNG hanukiah. Joyce was one of those responsible for the epic menorah we posted about in 2009. The LED on the Enterprise is being worked on–we think they may have a problem with their dilithium crystals.

Next, VanEdge posted this menorah in the forums. Both of these fine examples are based on Pez dispensers, which seem to be a handy size for holiday hacking, particularly when combined with our LED Menorah kit.

Happy Hanukkah to you both, and thank you for sharing your projects!

Our friend Ben sent us this picture of his son’s “robot” costume:

…lit with, what else, EMSL surplus traffic light— kill your eyes —LEDs. It’s five series pairs of your LEDs pointed up inside the costume and down the sleeves so the light bounces around and positively pours out of every crevice – highly visible for trick-or-treating!  There’s another two pairs, not lit in the picture, controlled by the momentary switches on the front panel for “turn signals.”

Thank you, Ben for sharing your project! And we still have just a few more of those eye-killing LEDs in the shop.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories Fall Open House

If you’re in the bay area this week, we hope you’ll join us for our open house:

When: Thursday, November 29, 5 pm − 9 pm
Where: Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
175 San Lazaro Ave, Suite 150
Sunnyvale, CA, 94086

You can check out our latest projects, meet Zener the cat, shop for holiday gifts, and share in food and conversation. We’ll also be running a hangout for non-local attendees, and will post the link on our Google+ page when it goes live.

Photo by Steve Hoefer.

Alter Itay sent us pictures of a bar he designed with our Interactive LED Panels installed under the glass bar top.

This is a popular use for the panels, but we rarely get to see the end results, as the bars they get installed in are all over the world.

As the patrons interact with each other and the bartenders they trigger the sensors and their drinks are illuminated by the LEDs.

Thanks very much to Itay for sending us the pictures and letting us share them!